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XE Image
Metascore
82

Universal acclaim - based on 6 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 9 Ratings

  • Summary: The latest release from the avant-garde New York trio was live recorded.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. Feb 4, 2015
    90
    Xe is a complete ecstatic experience itself as well as a dynamic text that reflects (on) these structural limitations that we employ in making sense of experience.
  2. Feb 4, 2015
    80
    Zs demonstrate an energy and urgency here that they’ve never before had, as these pieces leap off the page in exhilarating fashion.
  3. Feb 4, 2015
    80
    Xe's slippery moves might not set Zs on a path to your average teen or idiot Howard Stern fan's iPod, but it is a deft and focused work, demanding its rightful place on college radio and the blogosphere.
  4. The Wire
    Feb 4, 2015
    80
    Wow, does it reward your attention. [Feb 2015, p.54]
  5. Feb 18, 2015
    80
    Xe is a refreshing glimpse of a band captured in its most primordial state, and for all their clinical musical intellectualism, the album also offers snippets of Zs’ odd sense of humour, not to mention each player’s unique talents and virtuosity.
  6. Feb 17, 2015
    70
    The album’s latter half makes up for the first half’s (very) relative normality.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. Feb 19, 2015
    5
    XE is undoubtedly experimental and an inherently visceral listen due to the performance of the instrumentation, but its intriguing and freshXE is undoubtedly experimental and an inherently visceral listen due to the performance of the instrumentation, but its intriguing and fresh sounds cannot mask the overly repetitive songwriting. Zs have managed to create an album that sounds unique, but it is unfortunately bogged down by lackluster songwriting that does not beckon further listens. Collapse